Though “Wrath” is in the title and death threatens at every snakebite and midnight journey to the river’s edge to bathe, the suspense is deftly balanced with greatly amusing characters, charming family antics and an Indian culture rich with tradition and taboos.

“The Wrath of Shiva” is the latest in Oleksiw’s Anita Ray mystery series set in South India. Anita, half Indian, half American, is young, smart and curious. While she finds her way in life, she helps her Auntie Meena. Prone to fits of pique, Meena is nonetheless competent and reliable. She has to be to own and operate Hotel Delite, a competitive oceanfront tourist resort on the ocean’s edge.

Oleksiw’s stories bring readers into the heart and spirit of South India, where art, food, religion and lifestyle merge into a dense and colorful culture that, like the thick and thriving underbrush of the sacred forests, are full of intrigue. When Anita’s “cousin-sister” goes missing, along with many of the sacred objects in their ancestral home, we are introduced to an India few tourists ever see. Thanks to Oleksiw — she has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and travels extensively in India — we explore the culture and unravel the mystery with notable insider access. The Anita Ray series is reminiscent of the addictive “#1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith, with its equally quirky characters and delicious sense of place.

In this book, Bhagavati, the female form of the god Shiva, takes possession of maidservant Gauri. Gauri works for Anita’s beloved Muttacchi, matriarch and holder of the family estate. As puzzling as Gauri’s possession is, the priest’s violent exorcism rite is even more vexing. Anita begins to wonder what’s really going on. Her cousin-sister doesn’t arrive as scheduled, heirlooms and religious objects suddenly sprout something called bronze disease and disappear, and another maidservant is bashed over the head and hovers between life and death. Even the tourists at Hotel Delite are behaving oddly.

A bevy of strong, courageous women confront the perils, led by Anita. Her love interest Anand has a large role in this book, but Anita, for whom curiosity overpowers fear, attempts to keep the most dangerous of her escapades from him.

Muttacchi’s adviser, the astrologist Konan, insists that Gauri undergo an exorcism after Gauri experiences several seizures. The large elderly Muttacchi, in a show of support, rides to Gauri’s exorcism in the back of an old Morris Minor. Typical of Oleksiw’s polished, precise prose is this sentence: “The old woman bounced around in the back like a loose basketball.” Complex characterizations are built on sentences this brief and nimble.

In parts of India private properties, like the ancestral home presided over by Anita’s Muttacchi, abut sacred groves. A kavu is sacrosanct. You cannot set foot inside and it is allowed to flourish completely untouched by humans. Animals thrive there, as do many valued plants with curative powers. In Muttacchi’s grove the evil doings are numerous and from this sacred place evil emanates, spreads and imperils all those nearby. Shiva is indeed angry.

Rae Padilla Francoeur’s memoir, “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair,” is available online or in bookstores. Write her at rae.francoeur@verizon.net. Or read her blog at http://www.freefallrae.blogspot.com/ or follow her @RaeAF.

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